Monday, August 15, 2005

Glam Girl

I don't know about you, but I spent my Friday night at Marshall Fields annual Glamorama.
If you're thinking, wow that sounds like fun... well, not so much when you're working the after party as a glam rocker elevator girl. 7 "actors" were hired to help create a glam rock ambiance and I was one of them. Basically, I spent 5 1/2 hours in an elevator escorting scantily clad women (and some men) to the after-party on the 7th floor of Marshall Fields. The food and liquor were flowing freely as over 2000 of Chicago's coolest people partied the night away. The music was amazing, though I could only hear parts of the songs as my elevator door would close and I'd head back down to the first floor to pick up more partiers.
I started the night by getting "glammed" out by a fabulous gay man from MAC cosmetics. My job was literally to stand in the elevator on the 1st floor and as guests arrived press the 7th floor button and bring them to the party. As the night progressed and people got drunker, me and the other 6 elevator girls rotated which floors we "sat" at to bring people up and down.


It definitely got boring at times and by the end of the night (1:30am) I was exhausted and my feet were killing me. However, there was some great people watching and hilarious moments I got to witness.
There was a wide range of outfits, from ball gowns and tiaras to barely there shimmery, glitzy little numbers. A few people looked good, but overall most looked pretty ridiculous. They were like teenagers that finally had something to get all dressed up for. I particularly liked the 60 some year old women with mini skits and gigantic boobs. They came to Marshall Fields from the fashion show at the Chicago Theater. They started out very polite and friendly. Of course they got drunker and drunker, louder and louder, more and more obnoxious as the night progressed. I was spilled on (and consequently wiped down in places that I hadn't been spilt on) by strangers, kissed and flirted with by all sorts of characters. One of the elevator girls got her boob punched like a punching bag by a gay man. Ha, he played with her fun bags! Man I wish I could claim that story as my own.
The models from the fashion show were also at the party. There's nothing like 6 foot tall, 100 lb model with legs as tall as me entering the elevator to make me feel like the fattest midget in the world. These gorgeous women with their rich men would get into the elevator and I'm just the dorky girl smooshed against the wall pushing an elevator button. High light of my career...really. I also can't tell you how many times I heard from the passengers "Lingerie... 5th floor....ha, ha, ha." Dude, you aren't the first one to think of that joke...and it's not funny, nor is it ever going to be funny.
Some of the great things I did hear though were...
From a regular, average looking women to a male model : "So why did you move to Chicago, to model?"
Male model: "Yeah, for work, what do you do?"
Women: " Oh, I work for a book distributing company."
Male model: (way too enthusiastically) "WOW!"
Women: "Yeah, we've been distributing books for over 100 years."
Male model:" Yeah, I just started reading."

Another now classic involved an elevator full of strangers...
Woman to man: "Hey, I know you... you're my gynecologist!"
Man: "Uhh.. yeah, hi"
Woman: "Do you remember me?"
Man: "Uhh...yeah, you dyed your hair."
Woman: "How do you know I dye my hair...Oh, I know how you know." "So, do you remember how I had those two miscarriages?......"
The rest is not important. It was just great to be the fly on the wall in an extremely awkward situation.

Other fun sightings of the party (as I "sat" on the 7th floor waiting until someone needed a ride down) were the 2 very young girls dancing and practically stripping for an old man, a few thongs, a boob and some middle aged guy that had to be a computer geek, dancing his ass off in what looked like some sort of mating call for wet noodles. Being one of the only sober people there, it really makes me think twice about getting drunk and dancing with my friends. Man we must look stupid half the time. I just kept thinking about the Red Balloon last weekend and wondering if we were that retarded to outsiders. Yeah, probably.
I also met a couple celebrities. I met the guy, Fred something of the B-52's. Well, ok, he didn't notice me and actually rudely bumped into me in my elevator, but still. DJ Tony from the Ellen show was also there, he was the DJ for the party and was great. I did get to meet him and tell him something stupid like, "I liked the music" or "Good job" or something equally lame.

It was one of the longer nights of my life. I went home exhausted, but I think it was well worth the $175 I got paid and the hilarious stories and mental images I'll have in my memory.

- Mo

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yeah, it's the 4th picture down in the August 10th post.

Anonymous said...

No, I wore a very glamorous number. Black pants (which happened to be too long on me unless I wear I heels, but since I knew I'd be on my feet all day I wore my ugly, but comfortable flats so the pants bunched up a bit at the bottom) and an oversized "Glamorama" t-shirt that Marshall Fields gave us. Not a baby-tee cute thing, but one that we had to rubber band in the back so it would have at least an ounce of style, plus blingy jewelry.

Steaming bowl o' Calderone said...

I'll bet you looked ass-tastic!

Anonymous said...

Luckily when I use big words like "elevator" the models can't sound it out anyways.